Paranda Network – Project Co-ordinator (working across Dari, Pashto and English) – Paranda Network 

We are pleased to announce an opportunity for a Project Co-ordinator to join our small, creative team. The role will work across Dari, Pashto and English.

This is a one-year fixed-term freelance (self-employed) contract, working three days per week for 46 weeks, with potential for renewal.

Freelance fee: £24,000–£31,000 for the 46-week contract, depending on experience.

Applications from outside the UK will be considered, provided you are eligible to undertake freelance work for a UK-registered community interest company (company no. 12654173).

About Untold

Established in 2020, Untold Narratives works together with writers structurally marginalised by community or conflict. In many parts of the world, creative writers (fiction and non-fiction) don’t have access to the cultural infrastructures necessary to develop their writing and to find new platforms.

The Paranda Network is a writer development project and virtual network of women writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora. Untold supports these writers to develop their work; share their stories with wider communities in their own languages and grow global audiences in translation, in international literary publications.   

Our vision

Our vision is a world in which writers, irrespective of their situation, can tell their stories and share them within and between communities, and in which storytelling’s power to effect change and foster human rights is recognised.

Our mission

Our mission is to identify, develop, and amplify the work of writers in communities affected by social, geographic, or economic isolation, and those in areas of conflict.

About the role 

Project Co-ordinator – Paranda Network

We are recruiting for a part-time Project Co-ordinator to work across Dari, Pashto and English for the Paranda Network. Fluency in English and either Dari or Pashto is essential; fluency in all three languages is highly desirable.

Reporting to: CEO

Key Responsibilities 

Project co-ordination: support delivery of the Paranda project: 

• Proactively co-ordinate and facilitate a remote and secure editorial process to generate high-quality fiction and non-fiction in translation. 
• Be the key contact point for Paranda’s international editors, literary translators and writers, across time zones, in different countries.
• Co-ordinate monitoring and evaluation processes for the project. 
• Proactively compile the monthly Paranda newsletter in Dari and Pashto, including researching and identifying publishing and residency opportunities for Paranda writers.
• Moderate and co-ordinate the Paranda monthly book club in Dari and Pashto, and peer-to-peer ‘feedback’ session in Pashto and Dari. All via secure messaging app across several time zones.
• Co-ordinate and interpret Paranda guest speaker sessions, when necessary. 

Partnerships: 

• Identify and build new partnerships to promote the Paranda Network.
• Provide relevant information to support Untold’s funding proposals, and information to support reporting to Paranda Network funders.

Person Specification: 

Essential:

• Fluent written and verbal English, and fluency in either Dari or Pashto.
• Evidence of successful project management and/or co-ordination experience.
• Excellent attention to detail and strong communication skills.
• An interest in, and understanding of, writer development and editorial processes.
• Strong IT skills and knowledge of Microsoft Office and messaging apps.
• Financially numerate.
• Responsive, resourceful and adaptable, and comfortable working in a small team.
• Commitment to Untold’s mission and values.

Desirable:

• Fluency in both Dari and Pashto.
• Demonstrable understanding of Afghan cultural, literary and diasporic contexts, gained through lived, professional or voluntary experience.
• An interest in world literature.

Location: This is a hybrid role. If you are based in the UK, you will be required to attend meetings in person in London.

To apply: Please send a CV and a one-page A4 statement explaining why and how you are suitable for the role to Mark Osman-Barter at mark@untold-narratives.org by 12 noon BST on 17 September 2026. Interviews will take place in the week beginning 12 October 2026. If you’d like to have a conversation about the role before applying, please request this by emailing mark@untold-narratives.org